Donald Wandrei
|birth_place = Saint Paul, Minnesota |death_date = October |death_place = Saint Paul, Minnesota |occupation = writer, poet, editor |genre = science fiction, fantasy, weird fiction |movement = |magnum_opus = |debut_works = |influences = H.P. Lovecraft |influenced = |website = }} Donald Albert Wandrei (April 20, 1908 - October 15, 1987) was an American poet, writer of science fiction and fantasy, and editor. He was a founder of book publishing firm Arkham House. Life Wandrei was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. All of his grandparents were early Minnesota settlers. Donald's father, Albert Christian Wandrei, became chief editor of West Publishing Company, America's leading publisher of law books. Donald grew up in his parents' house at 1152 Portland Ave, Saint Paul, and lived there most of his life save for a stint in the Army and occasional sojourns in New York and Hollywood. He loved frequent rambles in the woods along the Minnesota River; it was Wandrei who later taught August Derleth the fine art of morel hunting. He attended Central High School in Saint Paul, 1921-1924, during which period he published short compositions in the school newspaper and avidly read the magazine Science and Invention. In 1923 he began work part-time as a 'page-boy' in the Circulation Room of the Saint Paul Public Library, filling reader's requests for books from the storage stacks; this expanded his access to, and reading of, a wide variety of literature. In 1923 and 1924 he also worked evenings at the Hill Reference Library. He graduated from the University of Minnesota (UM) in 1928, with a B.A. in English. While at UM he was a student editor on the student newspaper The Minnesota Daily. At that time he was enormously influenced by a reading of Arthur Machen's novel The Hill of Dreams. Career Wandrei started writing in 1926 and his writing career took off around 1932. In late 1927 he hitchhiked from Minnesota to Rhode Island to visit H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft conducted him on a grand antiquarian tour of Providence, Rhode Island, and then on to similar tours in Boston, Salem, Massachusetts, and Marblehead, Massachusetts. There was also an excursion to Warren, Rhode Island (later made famous by Wandrei's reminiscences in the Arkham House volume Marginalia, 1944) during which Wandrei, Lovecraft and James Ferdinand Morton each sampled 28 different flavors of ice cream at Maxfield's ice-cream parlour. Wandrei was active in pulp magazines until the late 1930s. He was a member of the "Lovecraft Circle," as a friend and protege of Lovecraft, corresponding with other members of the circle (Frank Belknap Long, Clark Ashton Smith, etc.). Wandrei personally made the case for Weird Tales to publish Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" telling Farnsworth Wright that unless he published the tale, Lovecraft might look for other magazines to submit stories to. As an accomplished poet, Wandrei was the earliest to write a series of sonnets for Weird Tales, “Sonnets of the Midnight Hours.” Lovecraft liked the idea so much, he embarked on his own series, "Fungi From Yuggoth.” Robert E. Howard also wrote his own series with “Sonnets out of Bedlam.” He wrote as Donald Wandrei. He was the older brother of science fiction writer and artist Howard Wandrei. He had 14 stories in Weird Tales and 16 in Astounding Stories, plus a few in other magazines including Esquire. Wandrei's only full-length fantastic novel, Dead Titans, Waken!, written in 1932, was rejected successively by three publishers - Harpers, Kendall and John Day, and finally shelved indefinitely by its author. However it was eventually destined to published in a heavily revised version in 1948 by Arkham House as The Web of Easter Island. The original version was scheduled to be published in the late 1990s by Fedogan and Bremer as edited by S.T. Joshi but due to the demise of F&B, Joshi's edition has not yet appeared. During 1933 Wandrei lived in a studio apartment in New York that was within easy walking distance of the offices of Street & Smith, who published Astounding Stories, so that Wandrei could easily bring in a new story by hand. His story “Colossus” was the earliest “thought variant” story (stories based on some new or not-yet-overworked idea such as other dimensions or the timetravel paradox), and helped revive the fortunes of Astounding under the editorship of his editorial mentor, F. Orlin Tremaine. During the 1930s Wandrei wrote 2 more (non-fantastic) novels and several plays, including a collaboration with his brother Howard, but none were published although they were submitted to various publishers and agents. He contributed 2 stories to the Cthulhu Mythos: "The Fire Vampires" (1933) and "The Tree-Men of M'Bwa" (1933). Wandrei and August Derleth later co-founded the publishing house Arkham House to keep Lovecraft's legacy alive, an action for which Wandrei is perhaps better remembered than for his own fiction. Much of the editorial work on Lovecraft's Selected Letters, as published by Arkham House in 5 volumes, was performed by Wandrei. Wandrei wrote some outlines for Gang Busters and other comic books in the 1940s, and also attempted writing song lyrics in Hollywood. After World War II he continued writing speculative fiction stories, although at a greatly reduced rate. Some of his stories were adapted for the comic book Weird Science - "Divide and Conquer" (issue 6), based on his "A Scientist Divides," and "Monster From the Fourth Dimension" (issue 7) based on "A Monster From Nowhere". In the 1970s Wandrei commenced a long and tedious process of litigation against Arkham House, the publishing company he had helped to found. In 1976 Philip Rahman met Wandrei at a convention and the 2 became friends. Wandrei died in Saint Paul in 1987. Writing 3 years after Wandrei's death in 1987, Rahman and his mostly silent partner Dennis Weiler founded the publishing firm of Fedogan and Bremer to issue work by Donald and Howard Wandrei as well as other classic pulp writers. S.T. Joshi: "Whatever place he ultimately occupies, his flawlessly chiselled poetry, old-fashioned as it is by current standards, will surely continue to live as a vital and central component of his collected works.”Leigh Blackmore, "Ecstacies and Odysseys: The weird poetry of Donald Wandrei", Rhythmic Toil Combin'd: Poets of the Lovecraft circle (edited by Phillip A. Ellis & Benjamin J. Szumskyj). Mythos Books. Scribd, Web, Mar. 16, 2013. Recognition *World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, 1984. (refused).Donald Wandrei, Alchetron. Web, Feb. 7, 2019. *First Fandom Hall of Fame, 1986. *Minnesota Fantasy Award, 1988.Donald Wandrei (1908-1987), Fancyclopedia 3, Wikidot. Web, Apr. 12, 2015. Publications Poetry *''Ecstasy. and other poems''. Athol, MA: Recluse Press, 1928. *''Dark Odyssey'' (illustrated by Howard Wandrei). St. Paul, MN: Webb Publishing Co, 1931. *''Poems for Midnight'' (illustrated by Howard Wandrei). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1965. *''Collected Poems'' (edited by S.T. Joshi; illustrated by Howard Wandrei). West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1988. *''Sanctity and Sin: The collected poetry and prose poems'' (edited by S.T. Joshi; illustrated by Howard Wandrei). New York: Hippocampus Press, 2008. ISBN 0-9771734-9-6 Novels *''The Web of Easter Island''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1948. *''Dead Titans, Waken! / Invisible Sun'' (edited by S.T. Joshi). Centipede Press, 2012. Short fiction *''The Eye and the Finger''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1944. *''Strange Harvest''. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1965. *''Colossus: Collected science fiction'' (edited by Philip J. Rahman & Dennis E. Weiler). Minneapolis, MN: Fedogan & Bremer, 1989. **expanded 2nd edition in 1999, adding 2 stories ("A Stranger Passes" & "If"), plus an updated biographical introduction by Richard L. Tierney & photo gallery) *''Don't Dream: Collected horror and fantasy''(edited by Philip J. Rahman & Dennis E. Weiler). Minneapolis, MN: Fedogan & Bremer, 1989. *''Frost''. Minneapolis, MN: Fedogan & Bremer (F & B Mystery), 2000. *''Three Mysteries''. Minneapolis, MN: Fedogan & Bremer, (F & B Mystery), 2000. *''Raiders of the Universes. Project Gutenberg, 2009. [originally in September 1932 ''Astounding] Collected editions *''A Donald Wandrei Miscellany'' (edited by D.H. Olson). St Paul, MN: Sidecar Preservation Society, 2001. Edited *H.P Lovecraft, Selected Letters, 1911-1924 (edited with August Derleth). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1965. *H.P Lovecraft. Selected Letters, 1925-1929 (edited with August Derleth). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1968. *H.P Lovecraft. Selected Letters, 1929-1931 (edited with August Derleth). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1971. Letters *''Mysteries of Time and Spirit: The letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Donald Wandrei'' (edited by S.T. Joshi & David E Schultz). Night Shade Books, 2002.Donald Wandrei, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation. Web, Mar. 16, 2013. ISBN 1892389495 Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.Wandrei, Donald, Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, November 27, 2012, SFE Ltd. Web, Mar. 16, 2013. References *Leigh Blackmore. Ecstasies and Odysseys: The Weird Poetry of Donald Wandrei, in Phillip A. Ellis & Benjamin J. Szumskyj (eds) Rhythmic Toil Combin'd: Poets of the Lovecraft Circle (Mythos Books) *Phillip A. Ellis. A Concordance to the Poetry of Donald Wandrei. Hippocampus Press, 2008. ISBN 9780981488820. May be obtained as a free download. http://www.hippocampuspress.com/other/wandrei_concordance_v3.pdf * Don Herron. "Collecting Donald Wandrei". Firsts (October 1999). http://www.donherron.com/collecting_donald_wandrei.html * S. T. Joshi. “Donald Wandrei: Nightmare in Green,” chapter 5 in Emperors of Dreams: Some Notes on Weird Poetry. Sydney: P’rea Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-9804625-3-1 (pbk) and ISBN 978-0-9804625-4-8 (hbk). * Richard L. Tierney. "Introduction" to Colossus: The Collected Science Fiction of Donald Wandrei. Minneapolis, MN: Fedogan and Bremer, 1999 (2nd ed). Notes External links ;Prose *"The Emperor of Dreams" ;Books * * * Don Herron, "Collecting Donald Wandrei" ;Audio / video *''The Tree-Men of M'Bwa'' ;Books *Donald Wandrei at Amazon.com ;About *Wandrei, Donald at the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. *Ron Breznay's Old Masters of Horror: Donald Wandrei at Hellnotes *Ecstasies and Odysseys: The weird poetry of Donald Wandrei at Scribd. ;Etc. *A Concordance to the Poetry of Donal Wandrei by Phillip A. Ellis *Donald Wandrei: An inventory of his papers at the Minnesota Historical Society Category:1908 births Category:1987 deaths Category:University of Minnesota alumni Category:American science fiction writers Category:American horror writers Category:American fantasy writers Category:Cthulhu Mythos writers Category:20th-century poets Category:American poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets